Palestinian children at an end-of-year ceremony in a Gaza kindergarten.Photo Credit: MEMRI

Media watchdog organizations have revealed an uptick in youth-directed anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian media and society in the past week, with initiatives sponsored by the Palestinian Authority, the UN, and European non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported that in the wake of Israel’s transferal last week of the remains of 91 terrorists to the PA, PA TV used its youth programming as a platform to lionize the terrorists as “the greatest role models.” PMW reported that the program, Speak Up, is “co-produced by PA TV and PYALARA,” a youth-focused NGO funded in part by the EU.

The program’s two hosts, a young man and young woman, exchange insights about the virtues of the repatriated terrorists, some of whom were responsible for the most notorious suicide bombings against Israel: “Unfortunately, we couldn’t part from them [the terrorists] or even embrace them,” the man says, “but were satisfied standing before their bodies, standing up before their sanctified message: The homeland won’t die, but we will die for it.”

Picking up where the male host left off, the woman said: “These [Martyrs] are more honored than all of us… They are the greatest role models for us, not only because they fought and struggled for the homeland, but also because they went beyond the sacrifice [of] strain and effort, to the stage where they actually sacrificed their lives for the homeland.”

Their displays of reverence was consistent with the official line of the PA, which honored the terrorists with funerals fit for national heroes.

Another report by PMW uncovered a puppet show for Palestinian children in east Jerusalem – sponsored by the UN-supported Palestinian NGO Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society – that managed to turn an event promoting non-smoking into a platform for anti-Israel propaganda. The educational event started with one puppet saying: “I wanted to stand before the audience and sing to Jerusalem, which is being kept from us. Jerusalem, whose youth are being killed by the Jews, to sing and to say: Jerusalem, we are coming, Jerusalem, the time of death has arrived. Jerusalem, we will not surrender to the enemies or be humiliated.”

Another puppet continues: “I, and many other youth like me, think that cigarettes will help us to grow, to turn into men. Jerusalem doesn’t need men who hold cigarettes. It needs men who hold machine guns, not cigarettes.”

Watch the video, courtesy of PMW, below:

According to PMW, the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society’s website states that the organization “maintains strategic ties with: …the French consulate, the Swiss Development Agency, the Youth Development Department, which belongs to the Association of Arab Studies the ‘Orient House,’ the Italian Institutions Union, the Faisal Husseini Institute,.. UNFPA…, the [Palestinian] Ministry of Youth and Sports… UNICEF, UNESCO…”

Finally, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) translated a featured article on the Al-Quds Brigades website which highlights an end-of-year ceremony for a kindergarten in Gaza. The military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported that the attending children dressed up in military uniforms, and acted out scenes of jihad armed with wooden rifles as well as torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

The article explained that the children of Gaza “are raised on the love of jihad, of resistance and of Palestine, and on the massacres and crimes of the Zionists– to the point that their lives, even in kindergarten, have become similar to those of the resistance fighters.”

The kindergarten teacher was quoted as saying: “In our annual end-of-year celebrations, we focus on having them enact the role of jihad and resistance fighters for the sake of Allah.” She also said that her aim is to raise “jihad fighters and commanders who will defend the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem.”

The article also quoted a uniform-clad child brandishing a wooden rifle, who declared: “When I grow up, I will [join] the ranks of the Islamic Jihad, and resist the Zionist enemy and fire rockets at him until I die as a martyr and join my father in Paradise.

“I love the resistance, the martyrs and Palestine,” he added. “When I grow up, I want to blow myself up among the Zionists on a bus and kill them in a martyrdom operation.”

The article noted that this “magnificent and glorious scene” takes place annually in kindergartens throughout Gaza.

About the Author:Solomon Burke is a regular contributor to JewishPress.com

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